At the moment I run two of my machines 24/7, my Windows 7 machine which acts as the server for my Soundbridge and the other half's Ebay sniping software 'jbidwatcher' (java based) and my Mythbuntu based mediacentre. I'm hoping to use the Mythbuntu machine to do everything so that I only need to run one PC 24/7.
I have succesfully managed to serve the Soundbridge using forked-daapd so the only thing left is the ebay sniping software which is proving a bit of a headache.
I connect to the mediacentre via ssh/vnc which works fine but what I would like to be able to do is use the ebay sniping software without disturbing the display on the TV if someone is watching it. I can do this using ssh -X as I have an X server on my Windows laptop but that only lets me start a new session of jbidwatcher it doesn't let me connect to an existing session.
I found a program called xpra (or WinSwitch) which should let me do what I want but it seems to be a bit flaky and quite often doesn't work at all (on Mythbuntu 12.04 at least).
Another option would be to output the display of jbidwatcher to its own VNC server but I can't seem to get that working reliably either - is there a single command that would set up the vncserver on display 99 and start jbidwatcher on display 99 so that I can vnc in on mythbuntu:99? I presume the syntax would be something like
vncserver :99 && DISPLAY=:99 jbidwatcher
but I can't seem to get that to work.
The only other thing I can think of is to run a VM solely for jbidwatcher which seems an awful waste of resources but probably less wasteful than an entire PC being on 24/7 when it doesn't need to be!
I'd appreciate your thoughts.
I have succesfully managed to serve the Soundbridge using forked-daapd so the only thing left is the ebay sniping software which is proving a bit of a headache.
I connect to the mediacentre via ssh/vnc which works fine but what I would like to be able to do is use the ebay sniping software without disturbing the display on the TV if someone is watching it. I can do this using ssh -X as I have an X server on my Windows laptop but that only lets me start a new session of jbidwatcher it doesn't let me connect to an existing session.
I found a program called xpra (or WinSwitch) which should let me do what I want but it seems to be a bit flaky and quite often doesn't work at all (on Mythbuntu 12.04 at least).
Another option would be to output the display of jbidwatcher to its own VNC server but I can't seem to get that working reliably either - is there a single command that would set up the vncserver on display 99 and start jbidwatcher on display 99 so that I can vnc in on mythbuntu:99? I presume the syntax would be something like
vncserver :99 && DISPLAY=:99 jbidwatcher
but I can't seem to get that to work.
The only other thing I can think of is to run a VM solely for jbidwatcher which seems an awful waste of resources but probably less wasteful than an entire PC being on 24/7 when it doesn't need to be!
I'd appreciate your thoughts.
